Introduction

This bulletin provides the latest statistics relating to offenders who are in prison or supervised in the community in England and Wales. It covers flows into these services (receptions into prison or probation starts) and flows out (releases from prison or probation terminations) as well as the caseload of both services at specific points in time. The figures are presented in detail, with commentary, in the following sections of the bulletin.

Further information about background, data definitions, data quality issues and users of the statistics are available in the accompanying document.

The next edition of this bulletin, covering the period January to March 2015, will be published on 30 July at 9.30am. Key Findings

- The prison population has continued to increase, but has grown by less than 1% over the last twelve months. The number of sentenced adult sex offenders continues to rise, and overall the remand, sentenced and non-criminal population have all increased slightly.

- The sentenced prison population continues to shift towards a population serving longer determinate sentences. Over the last twelve months the sentenced population serving determinate sentences of four years or more continued to increase, whereas all other shorter determinate sentenced populations have fallen.

- Prison receptions and releases for determinate sentences decreased across all sentence lengths, apart from receptions for long determinate sentences of four years or more, which increased over the last year.

- In 2014 there was the lowest number of temporary release failures in a year since 2002. Furthermore, the temporary release failure rate has more than halved since 2002.

- Both the total probation caseload and the court order caseload fell by 1% between the quarters ending December 2013 and December 2014.

- The number of offenders starting community orders fell by 8% over this period, whilst starts of suspended sentence orders with requirements attached increased by 2%. The fall in community order starts is consistent with quarter on quarter trends seen over the past couple of years, and with the trends in court sentencing statistics over the same period.

- The proportion of offenders not returned to custody by the end of March 2015, following a licence recall over the whole period 1999 to the end of December 2014, remained constant with only 6 in 1,000 prisoners not being returned to custody. Prison population

The prison population grew rapidly between 1993 and 2008, at an average of 4% a year. This rapid rise was driven by:

- Increases in the number of people sentenced to immediate custody from 1993 to 2002;
- Increases in the average custodial sentence length and increased use of indeterminate sentences; and
- Increases in the number of offenders recalled to prison following breaches of their licence conditions, along with increases in the average length of time these offenders spent in prison once recalled.

The rise in the prison population slowed considerably from the summer of 2008, in part due to the introduction of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008, which changed sentencing and offender management in ways which helped to reduce growth in the prison population.

This flatter trend continued until the public disorder seen in UK cities from 6 to 9 August 2011 which had an immediate but temporary impact on the prison population. During 2012 and into 2013, the prison population began to fall due to a falling remand population and a continued decline in the number of under 18s in custody. The falling remand population during 2012 reflected falling volumes going through the courts plus the introduction of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders (LASPO) Act in December 2012. This Act restricted the use of remand for offenders who would be unlikely to receive a custodial sentence.

The ‘Story of the Prison Population 1993 to 2012’ is an in-depth look at what happened to the prison population between 1993 and 2012 and the major factors contributing to the changes.

Following the LASPO Act in December 2012, and up until the end of June 2013, the prison population stabilised. In particular, by March 2013 the remand population stopped falling as it had done since August 2011. After settling at a lower level the remand population then began to rise again from August 2013, and contributed to the sharp rise in the prison population seen between the end of August and October 2013. Overall, since June 2013 the prison population has increased, albeit at a slower rate than in previous years, typically growing at around 1% a year. Growth in the size of the prison population has slowed slightly, growing at less than 1% over the last twelve months to 31 March 2015. Slight increases were seen across all of the remand, sentenced, and non-criminal populations.

The previous increases in the remand population had been attributed to an increase in demand on the courts, which in some cases had led to longer waiting times. However, since the start of the year 2015, the remand population has settled at just less than 12,000 prisoners, and is comparable to the same time last year. This is consistent with Criminal Court Statistics Quarterly which shows the workload being received by the courts is now stabilising at a higher level.

Whilst the sentenced population only increased slightly, its composition continued to change. Those serving sentences less than 4 years decreased whereas those serving determinate sentences of four years or more continued to grow. Over the twelve months to March 2015 the number of prisoners serving these long determinate sentences increased by 6%. Much of this increase is due to the Extended Determinate Sentence (EDS), which is now available for offenders who would previously have received an Indeterminate Sentence for Public Protection (IPP). As at the end of March 2015 there were 1,742 prisoners serving an EDS, which is more than double the number (844 prisoners) who were serving these sentences twelve months ago at the end of March 2014. The remainder of the increase is attributable to the number of offenders being received into custody with other longer determinate sentence lengths.

The rise in the long determinate sentenced population is in line with the increasing number of sentenced adult sex offenders. At the end of March 2015 there were 11,573 sentenced adult sex offenders in the prison population, which is 7% (or 779) higher than twelve months before. Looking more widely, the increasing number of sex offenders in the prison population is consistent with the increasing number being given custodial sentences by the courts and, with the recent ‘Crime in England and Wales’ bulletin from the Office for National Statistics that reported the highest number of sexual offences recorded by the police since 2002/03, for the year ending December 2014.

This is part of a longer term trend whereby sentenced prisoners are increasingly serving sentences for more serious offences – the proportion serving sentences for sexual offences increased from 10% in 2000 to 17% at the end of March 2015. Similarly, 27% of the sentenced population had committed violence against the person offences, up from 21% in 2000.

The number of prisoners serving indeterminate sentences (IPP or life) was down 3% on the previous year, to 12,203. This decrease is explained entirely by the abolition of the IPP sentence; offenders are no longer receiving these sentences and prisoners are only being released from this population. The total number of prisoners serving IPP sentences fell from 5,206 at the end of March 2014 to 4,756 at the end of March 2015; however, as a result of the number of IPP prisoners who are post-tariff remaining flat, the proportion of population post-tariff has been increasing.

The number of life sentenced prisoners remained stable. There were 52 whole life prisoners at the end of March 2015, with five additional life prisoners being treated in secure hospitals.

There was a decrease in the foreign national population in custody, which was down 2% on the previous year to 10,481 on 31 March 2015 (representing 12% of the prison population). Within this there was an increase in the foreign national remand population, but this was offset by a fall in the foreign national sentenced population.

There is no clear evidence to explain the increase in the recall population, which has increased by 10% over the year. Whilst the Offender Rehabilitation Act 2014 (ORA) expanded licence supervision so that anyone sentenced to more than a day in prison will receive at least 12 months supervision on release, this only came into effect for those who committed an offence and were sentenced after 1 February 2015. It is therefore too early to determine what impact, if any, ORA has had on the recall population.

In the next edition of Offender Management Statistics Quarterly (OMSQ), as a result of improvements to IT, statistics on the prison population will change. In the longer term, this means that more detailed information about the prison population should be available for inclusion in this statistical series. For the next edition of OMSQ, it is likely there will be differences between the new and old statistics that will need to be quantified and explained. Immediate changes, that should begin to take place in the next edition, will be the introduction of more detailed sentence length breakdowns and the transition over to the new Office for National Statistics (ONS) offence groups. When these changes are first introduced we will be welcoming feedback from our users to help develop and refine these further.

In this edition of OMSQ, due to problems with data quality, reporting on the populations in the 'Burglary' and 'Theft and Handling' offence groups continues to be disrupted. This is because, for statistical purposes only, some prisoners have been misallocated between these two offence groups. This has been clearly footnoted in the affected tables (Tables 1.2a, and 1.2b), and these data points are replaced with the “..” symbol for this edition. As a result of the improvement being made to IT outlined above, the reporting of these figures has been suspended and will not be reinstated. Prison receptions

On 24 July 2014 a statistical notice and consultation document was published setting out the intention to improve the back time series in all annual receptions tables. Therefore, in this edition of the publication, all annual receptions tables have been populated back to 1990. Further details regarding the time series, and the changes made in these tables, can be found in the front guidance notes in the ‘Data sources and quality’ section of the annual tables.

First receptions count prisoners the first time they appear in prison from court. A prisoner's reception type is counted each time they are first received into custody as untried, convicted unsentenced, and sentenced prisoners from court. This means that prisoners can be counted in more than one of these categories if their custody status changes as they progress through the Criminal Justice System in the reporting period.

Between 1990 and 2002, there was an increase in remand receptions, the largest of which were seen in convicted unsentenced receptions which more than doubled in number. From 2002 to 2014, remand receptions decreased with untried receptions falling by 18% and convicted unsentenced receptions falling by 40% in that time.

Between 1990 and 2008, sentenced receptions increased by 49%. Much of this increase was due to receptions on to determinate sentences of six months or less which more than doubled in number between 1993 and 2008. From 2008 to 2014, sentenced receptions fell by 22%.

The volume of offenders imprisoned for defaulting on a fine decreased by 94% between 1995 and 2002, following the Cawley judgement in 1995 which clarified the legislative position whereby all enforcement measures have to be actively considered or tried before imprisonment can be imposed by the courts. Since then, the number of receptions has remained below 2,000 per year.

Comparing October to December 2014 to the same period the year before, first receptions fell 3% to 25,087. There was a 2% fall in untried receptions, a 6% fall in convicted unsentenced receptions and a 4% fall in sentenced receptions. Much of this decline in sentenced receptions was due to a fall in receptions on to determinate sentences of less than four years, which has also been seen in the prison population. In particular, sentences of greater than 6 months to less than 12 months fell by 10% compared to this time last year. In contrast, receptions on to long determinate sentences of four years or more rose by 9%, which again is reflected in the prison population. Over the latest year ending 31 December 2014 there was a continued increase in sentenced receptions for sexual offences (12%), but decreases in receptions for all other offence groups, in particular, theft and handling (15%) and robbery (13%). The number of sentenced receptions for which the offence was not recorded more than doubled compared to the same time last year, but the number of these cases remains small, accounting for less than 2% of all sentenced receptions, and therefore not affecting the overall results that these figures present.

Juvenile remand receptions saw a larger decline than adult remand receptions over the same year period. In particular, the untried receptions of 18 to 20 year olds decreased by 16% compared to a decrease of less than 0.5% in untried receptions for the adult population. Juvenile sentenced receptions also saw a larger decline than adult sentenced receptions, with decreases seen across all sentence lengths. Female sentenced receptions saw an increase of 1%. This was attributable to a rise in receptions on to determinate sentences of 12 months to less than four years which rose by 10% in comparison to this time last year. Prison releases

In 2014, a total of 72,822 offenders were released from determinate sentences, a fall of 8% from 2013. Over the longer term, the number of releases from determinate sentences remained relatively stable between 2002 and 2007 before rising in 2008. This rise was attributable to a large increase in the numbers leaving prison having served short custodial sentences of less than 12 months, and is consistent with the growth in the short sentenced prison population at that time. Subsequently, the number of releases has been falling since 2008 due to a falling number of prison receptions for shorter determinate sentences (less than 12 months) throughout the period.

In addition, 618 offenders were released from indeterminate sentences in 2014, which is 142 fewer than the number released in 2013 and up 480 from its lowest value in 2006. The longer term increases are mainly due to a rise in the number of offenders released from Indeterminate sentences for Public Protection (IPP) which were introduced in 2005.

Looking at the most recent period, a total of 18,475 offenders were released from custody in the quarter ending December 2014, a fall of 5% on the same quarter last year. This is largely attributable to a 6% decrease in releases of short sentenced (less than 12 months) prisoners.

There were 89 prisoners released from an IPP and a further 55 from a life sentence, making up an 18% decrease in releases from indeterminate sentences overall when compared to the same period last year. In addition, 20 indeterminate sentenced prisoners were removed under the Tariff Expired Removal Scheme (TERS) in the latest quarter. This scheme allows indeterminate sentenced foreign national prisoners, who are liable to removal from the UK, to be deported from the country on or after the date of their tariff expiry without referral to the Parole Board. The scheme began in May 2012, and by the end of December 2014 there had been 296 removals in total.

The number of releases on Home Detention Curfew (HDC) fell by 13% to 2,222 between the quarters ending December 2013 and December 2014. To be considered for release under HDC an offender must be serving a sentence of less than 4 years, and as discussed in the prison population section, the number of offenders serving such sentences has been falling. The decrease of 6% in the eligible population will have a direct impact on the number that can be considered for HDC release and the number that are subsequently released.

Release on temporary licence (ROTL) is a mechanism that enables prisoners to participate in necessary activities, outside of the prison establishment, that directly contribute to their resettlement into the community and their development of a purposeful, law-abiding life. In 2014, there were 452,677 incidences of prisoners being released on temporary licence; this is a fall of 14% compared to 2013. This fall follows the written ministerial statement on ROTL policy on 10 March 2014 which set out a more thorough assessment of the risks before temporary release is authorised and a more consistent and robust response for prisoners who fail to comply with their licence. Whilst the number of incidences of ROTL remains higher than before 2010, 2014 saw the lowest number of individuals received ROTL since the year 2002 (based on years for which figures are available).

Between October and December 2014, there were 98,393 incidences of ROTL from prisons in England and Wales. This is a 25% decrease since October and December 2013; with all types of licence showing decreases. The number of release incidences for females decreased by 9%, compared to a 26% decrease for males over the same period. The number of individuals given at least one instance of ROTL between October and December 2014 was 4,154, which represents a 29% decrease over the year. Of the individuals given at least one instance of ROTL, 14% were on an indeterminate sentence.

The number of recorded temporary release failures (TRFs) between October and December 2014 was 34, which is a fall of 52 since the same period last year. Therefore TRFs as a proportion of temporary release incidences was also down compared to October to December 2013, from 65 failures per 100,000 incidences of release to 35 in October to December 2014.

The number of recorded failures has shown a decrease every quarter since April to June 2013. In total there were 238 TRFs in the year 2014, making this the lowest number of failures in a year since 2002. Furthermore, there were 53 failures per 100,000 incidences of release, meaning the failure rate has more than halved since 2002. Probation

Since the 1st June 2014, Probation Trusts have been replaced by the National Probation Service (NPS), which manages the most high-risk offenders across seven divisions; and 21 new Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs), that manage medium and low-risk offenders. At the end of December 2014 the probation caseload was still in transition with some cases held, both in the NPS and CRCs, pending transfer to the other organisation for reasons relating to effective risk management.

The total annual probation caseload (court orders and pre and post release supervision) increased by 39% between 2000 and 2008 to 243,434. Since then the probation caseload has fallen year on year, reaching 217,359 at the end of 2014, down 1% from the previous year.

Figure 2: Number of offenders under Probation Service supervision (at end December), 2005-2014

Note: the total number of offenders is overstated as some appear in more than one category.

The court order caseload (offenders on community orders (COs) and suspended sentence orders (SSOs)) fell slightly by 1%, with the CO caseload falling 3% but the SSO caseload rising by 3% between the quarters ending December 2013 and 2014. The number of offenders starting community orders fell by 8% over this period, whilst starts of SSOs with requirements attached increased by 2%. The fall in community order starts is consistent with quarter on quarter trends seen over the past couple of years.

In addition, in the quarter ending December 2014 there were over 2,100 starts of SSOs without requirements attached. This brings the total number of stand-alone SSOs starts to more than 10,500 since they were introduced under the LASPO Act 2012 (see the Offender management statistics accompanying information, Appendix A - data sources and quality section).

The caseload of offenders supervised before or after release from prison fell by 1% between the quarters ending December 2013 and 2014, whilst the number of pre-release supervision starts remained stable over this period.

With regard to the number of requirements started under court orders, there has again been a notable rise in curfews and standalone curfews in particular. This may reflect the continuing impact of a mandatory punitive requirement in every community order, introduced from December 2013 under the Crime and Courts Act 2013. The combination of supervision and unpaid work requirements made under both community orders and suspended sentence orders again showed a rise over the latest quarterly period.

Of the court orders terminated in the quarter ending December 2014, more than two-thirds (68%) of community orders were terminated successfully (either ran their full course or terminated early for good progress). For suspended sentence orders, 70% were terminated successfully over this period.

The number of court reports prepared by the National Probation Service continued to fall. A total of 36,159 court reports were prepared in the quarter ending December 2014, 3% down on the quarter ending December 2013, reflecting the continuing downward trend in the number of cases being dealt with by the courts. The decrease was driven by a large fall in the number of Standard PSRs (Pre-Sentence Reports) and fast delivery oral reports, both of which were down by almost a quarter.

In general, courts follow the sentences proposed in PSRs, particularly where an immediate custodial sentence has been recommended. Of such proposed sentences in PSRs, 89% resulted in immediate custody. Licence recalls

A key element of public protection is that offenders released on licence should be effectively supervised in the community and swiftly recalled to custody if they breach their licence or if their behaviour gives cause for concern. It is explained to offenders at the outset that they are liable to be recalled to custody if they breach any of the conditions of their licence. There are various reasons why offenders are recalled to custody for breaching their licence conditions besides committing a further offence. For example, an offender may be recalled if there is any deterioration in behaviour which leads the National Offender Management Service (NOMS) to conclude that there is an increased risk of the offender committing further offences.

Over the period 1999 to December 2014, a total of 698,600 offenders were released from prison on licence supervision. Between April 1999 and December 2014, 186,474 of those released on licence were recalled to custody for breaching the conditions of their licence, e.g. failing to report to their probation officer. Of all those recalled over the period, 99.4% were returned by the end of March 2015.

Of all those released on licence and recalled to custody between April 1999 and December 2014, there were 1,110 who had not been returned to custody by the end of March 2015. This means the proportion of prisoners not returned to custody over this period is 0.6% and this is a relatively constant figure when compared to previous years. A further 18 offenders had not been returned to custody as of 31 March 2015 after recall between 1984 and April 1999, meaning the total number of offenders not returned to custody at the end of March 2015 was 1,128. These figures include some offenders believed to be dead or living abroad but who have not been confirmed as dead or deported.

Of the 1,128 not returned to custody by 31 March 2015, 141 had originally been serving a prison sentence for violence against the person offences and a further 37 for sexual offences. Response to consultation on licence recall statistics

The last edition of Offender Management Statistics Quarterly (OMSQ), released on 29 January 2015, was accompanied by a statistical notice and consultation document and a proposed set of statistical tables. Taken together, these set out how we proposed to improve the presentation of licence recall statistics to provide data on the impact of the Transforming Rehabilitation Programme on the number of offenders recalled while on licence or under post-sentence supervision in a way that was clear and accessible to users. Users of these statistics were invited to review these tables and the proposals in the consultation.

Responses to these proposals were received from two charities, and two Members of Parliament who tabled Parliamentary Questions on the subject of licence recalls. These responses asked for four changes to these proposals. These were to include:

1. Recalls of males and females shown separately.
2. The indeterminate sentences category to be broken down into separate life sentence and Indeterminate Sentences for Public Protection (IPP) categories.
3. Recalls data showing whether recalls took place during either the licence period or the supervision period.
4. Recalls data broken down by each Community Rehabilitation Company (CRC) and National Probation Service (NPS) division.

In accordance with Cabinet Office guidance on the general election, we have not introduced any of these additional breakdowns in this edition of OMSQ, and expect to begin to introduce these in the next edition in July 2015. Overall, after considering these responses, we intend to make four further corresponding changes to OMSQ to address these four points our users have made. In particular we will:

1. Include separate information on male and female recalls. Tables 5.2, 5.3a, 5.4a and 5.6 will be expanded in line with other OMSQ tables to give statistics for males and females combined, and separately for males and females. This will give male and female information on those recalled to custody, returned to custody, not returned to custody, and the total not returned to custody. To help present this information clearly we will discontinue the presentation of percentages currently proposed in Tables 5.3b and 5.4b. We intend to introduce this information in the next edition of OMSQ in July 2015.

2. Separate out the indeterminate sentences recall category to give a further breakdown for life and IPP sentence recalls. Tables 5.2, 5.3a, 5.4a and 5.6 will be expanded to include this further breakdown for the indeterminate sentences category. This will give separate information on life and IPP sentenced offenders recalled to custody, returned to custody, not returned to custody, and the total not returned to custody. We intend to introduce this information in the next edition of OMSQ in July 2015.

3. Present information showing whether recalls occurred in the licence period or supervision period. To do this we plan on introducing an additional table, which is expected to be an adaptation of Table 5.2 showing for all supervising bodies, the National Probation Service, and Community Rehabilitation Companies whether recalls occurred in the licence period or supervision period. This will include the breakdowns stated in parts 1 and 2 above regarding information on males and females, and indeterminate sentences, respectively.

As the Offender Rehabilitation Act 2014 only came into effect for those who committed an offence and were sentenced after 1 February 2015, further quality assurance will be required to ensure these statistics are suitable for publication. We therefore intend to introduce this information in OMSQ in October 2015.

4. Show the individual supervising CRC or NPS division at the time of recall. To do this we plan on introducing an additional table, this is expected to be an adaptation of Table 5.2 showing the individual supervising CRC or NPS division prior to recall. We intend to introduce this information in the next edition of OMSQ in July 2015.

Following this, and subject to the data quality work required for part 3, we will expand this table further to show, of these recalls, which occurred during the licence period, and which occurred in the supervision period. It is intended to introduce this information in OMSQ in October 2015 when the work for part 3 is complete.

As these changes are introduced we will welcome user views on these statistics to ensure they meet their needs. It is therefore likely that over the remainder of 2015, and possibly into 2016, these tables will evolve as the usage and demand for these tables develops. Contact points

Press enquiries should be directed to the Ministry of Justice press office:

Tel: 020 3334 3536

Other enquiries about these statistics should be directed to:

**Jonny Hughes** Ministry of Justice Justice Statistics Analytical Services 7th Floor 102 Petty France London SW1H 9AJ

General enquiries about the statistical work of the Ministry of Justice, or requests for alternative formats of this publication can be e-mailed to: statistics.enquiries@justice.gsi.gov.uk

General information about the official statistics system of the UK is available from www.statistics.gov.uk

Ministry of Justice publishes data relating to offender management in England and Wales. Equivalent statistics for Scotland and Northern Ireland can be found at:

www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Crime-Justice www.dojni.gov.uk/index/statistics-research/stats-research-publications.htm

This publication and associated spreadsheet files of the tables contained in this document and detailed information of definitions, sources and key legislative changes are available for download at: www.gov.uk/government/collections/offender-management-statistics-quarterly

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